Office Web Apps - Guide for IT Pros - now available for download

Office Web Apps gives users a browser-based viewing and editing experience by providing a representation of an Office document in the browser. When a user clicks on a document stored in a SharePoint document library, the document opens directly in the browser. The document appears in the browser similar to how it appears in the Office client application. The Web app also provides many of the same editing features as an Office client application.

Office Web Apps provides this representation of an Office Word document, PowerPoint presentation, Excel workbook, or OneNote notebook using native browser objects such as HTML, JavaScript, and images. Each document type is handled differently depending on the Office Web Apps services started and whether the Office Web Apps Feature is activated.